Ocean Gyres

Oceans have been around for almost as long as the earth has existed. They came to existence due to volcanic outgassing and have been part of the world since. Life also began in the ocean and today we have come along way as humans. We are technologically advancing every day and making great discoveries. Our advancements have also helped us create dangerous products like disposable plastics that are not good for our environment. Through heavy use of plastic and disposable products we have polluted our oceans with much unwanted debris. After competing in a transpacific yacht race, Captain Charles Moore was the first to discover a part of the ocean that was filled with an abnormal amount of trash. This giant part of the Pacific Ocean is known

Also known as the ocean conveyor belt, thermohaline circulation plays a key role in the ocean. It regulates the salinity and temperature of water, as well as regulate water density. It also helps with nutrient flow, such as transporting zooplankton around the ocean, which is an important source of food for many sea creatures. Nitrogen fixation, which is the process that converts Nitrogen from the atmosphere into ammonia, also takes place in gyres. After Nitrogen fixation takes place, ammonia then goes through nitrification, which converts ammonium into nitrate. Sea plants feed on nitrate and other sea creatures feed on those plants. Nitrogen fixation can be considered very important to the food chain. The North Pacific gyre is a subtropical gyre, which means it forms in between the northern and equatorial regions of the ocean. It may seem as if these water systems are just spirals that appear in the ocean because of the coriolis effect, but in fact, there is more to these water systems than one would expect. Many sea creatures benefit from gyres such as the one in the North Pacific. When plastic makes its way into the ocean, it can negatively impact all the processes that the gyres partake